Halo: Combat Evolved News for PC

Microsoft explains why Bungie is brilliant

Is an ‘awesome partner’.

Microsoft invests in Bungie as developer of the Halo games because “they spend more time polishing gameplay” than any other studio.

That’s according to Alex Cutting, producer on Halo 3: ODST from Microsoft Game Studios.

Cutting, who acts as a representative of the game to Microsoft and makes sure their investments come along the way they’d like them to, told VideoGamer.com that one of Bungie’s greatest assets is the ability to have a playable version of its Halo games ready a year before they’re released.

He said: “Bungie is an awesome partner. They say this a lot, and I believe it, they make the games they want to play.

“What’s cool about Halo games is, you can be a year out from their actual street date, and the game’s playable. People are actually playing the game at that point. We can watch people play, and we can get 60 people’s feedback on just one experience in that game and polish that thing and hone it until it’s triple A quality.

“Not many people can do that. A lot of people who are just getting a game engine off of the ground don’t have the ability to iterate on an experience like that.”

He added: “Bungie is all about gameplay. They spend more time polishing gameplay than anyone I’ve ever seen.

“They also have incredible artists. The skies and the environments in that game are in my opinion unequalled. They’re a triple A talent up and down, from design to art to execution, they’re awesome.”

Cutting is also responsible for suggesting game changes to developers working on Microsoft Game Studios published titles, but revealed that he has never had to do so with Bungie.

“Everything Bungie puts on the table is awesome,” he said.

“It’s very, very rare that we do that. That’s more of a Microsoft Game Studios issue. But as a first party publisher, we hire triple A dev talent, and we hire them for a reason, which is we trust them to produce the games people want to play. So no, that really actually isn’t an issue.”

Halo 3: ODST is due out exclusively on the Xbox 360 September 22. For more, head over to our game page.

What do you think is best about Bungie? Let us know in the comments section below.